One of the strengths of SPoR is a Transdisciplinary approach to knowing. This means being open to disciplines often not given validity in the risk and safety sector. To be Transdisciplinary means being able to think and work across all disciplines. This is something scholars like Prof. Karl E. Weick and Educators like Prof. Guy Claxton travers with ease.

Both scholars bring into their practice the wisdom of eastern philosophies and religion. For example: Weick in his paper Organizing for Mindfulness: Eastern Wisdom and Western Knowledge (https://www.academia.edu/24611432/An_exploration_of_mindfulness_theories_in_Eastern_and_Western_philosophies) explores how eastern religion and philosophy contributes to an understanding of Mindfulness. Please note: the word mind has nothing to do with the work of the brain.

Similarly, Claxton in his books, perhaps the best The Heart of Buddhism, practical wisdom for an agitated world, opens up our thinking on mindfulness well beyond the confines of Western conceptual and propositional thinking. Perhaps also try this book: The Psychology of Awakening (https://content.e-bookshelf.de/media/reading/L-459526-8a2ce09d9f.pdf).

In our recent workshops on the Philosophy of Risk, we used the following map to show the differences between the Eastern and Western approaches to philosophy.

Even so, this map doesn’t do justice to the depth, diversity, history and complexities of Eastern philosophies and religions. We have so much to learn in risk and safety from Eastern Religion and Philosophy.

In this article by Weick, he draws us into the mystery, messiness, circularity and impermanence of Mindfulness. Whilst quoting the works of Gunaratana and Kabat-Zinn, he demonstrates how Eastern Philosophy and religion complement and add to Western philosophy. He states:

Mindfulness is said to be fully developed when there is ongoing awareness that “(a) all conditioned [i.e., caused] things are inherently transitory; (b) every worldly thing is, in the end, unsatisfying; and, (c) there are really no entities that are unchanging or permanent, only processes” (Gunaratana, 2002, p. 144). These are the qualities of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and the selflessness of phenomena … Impermanence is the quality of experience that everything is shifting, going to pieces, slowly dissolving, rising and falling, and that moment-to- moment experience is all there is (Gunaratana, 2002).

He argues that as people seek to organise and reduce equivocality, they ‘cling’ to what is comfortable, known and familiar. He argues that this clinging to certainty, characterised by linearity in Western thought creates a blindness to the unexpected. This discussion of being mindful of impermanence is very familiar to the idea of being conscious of fallibility. He states:

Oppression stems from a “self-centered attempt to make things and relationships permanent or to have them be just the way we want for our own selfish motives”

Weick suggests that Western philosophy attempts to correct mistakes and control chaos whereas, Eastern philosophy accepts messiness, chaos and fallibility as blessings of flux and impermanence that help avoid the delusions of the static self. He argues that the yearning for order is generated by ‘three mental toxins’ these are: greed, hatred and delusions. Mindfulness is then a realised in the virtues of generosity, loving kindness and clarity of Mind.

The article by Weick suggests that effective Mindfulness should include a collaboration of Western and Eastern philosophies and suggests that his five properties of Collective Mindfulness does just that. In Transdisciplinarity, it is never either/or but both/and. Indeed, in SPoR this is why we constantly emphasise the dialectic as the conversational tension between competing values. WE often use the mandala to help think in this way.

The other issue of monumental important in this paper is the importance of focusing on ‘organising’ not organisation. Weick states (p.283):

Another way to strengthen the connection between Eastern and Western views of mindfulness is to redirect attention away from organization toward organizing. Such a shift emphasizes that organizing involves ongoing mental action infused with rising and falling, becoming and declining, emerging and disappearing. The shift in language from the concept of organization to the concept of organizing makes room for greater individual awareness by investigators and employees alike of one or more of the three characteristics of existence.

This is why in SPoR we don’t discuss the static idea of a HRO but rather refer to HROing. We create a participle out of the idea so that it is never static. One never arrives as a HRO. Indeed, there is no such thing as a HRO. Weick continues on (p.283):

When researchers invoke the concept of organizing (e.g., Heath & Sitkin, 2001), they imply that the objects of their study show impermanence (we have to keep reaccomplishing the coordination and interdependence associated with collective action); they accept the inevitability of suffering (reaccomplishment is necessary, because order keeps rising and falling, appearing and disappearing, and forming and dissolving despite our efforts to hold it permanently in place), and/or they discard the view that a (permanent) material self is in control of the efforts to enact order (there is no entity or stable agent that is in control of order, but only flow and constantly changing ways of relating).

Weick then states (p.284):

The pattern of mindfulness found in these HRO settings is one where people pay more attention to failures than success, avoid simplicity rather than cultivate it, are just as sensitive to operations as they are to strategy, organize for resilience rather than anticipation, and allow decisions to migrate to experts wherever they are located.

Such a contrast to the myths of HOP slogans and mythical delusions of avoiding failure.

There is much more in this article that warrants careful consideration by the risk and safety industry. Especially, the trap of seeking permanence, certainty and disconnectedness in operations. I will leave it to you to download the paper and read it in detail. It certainly presents some big challenges for an industry locked into deontology, linearity and the quest for agreement.

Epilogue

One of the great delights of working in Transdisciplinarity in SPoR has been the engagement with Dr Nippin Anand and his Eastern Philosophical and Eastern religious thinking. So many of the riches in Mindfulness from Nippin’s tradition have made SPoR become even more alive to the fullness of Mindfulness in the way Prof. Karl Weick describes.

Both Nippin and I have met Prof. Guy Claxton and we will devote some discussion towards his work and Eastern Philosophy/Religion in a blog in the future.